The leading mobile app data company App Annie released its five-year forecast for the app store markets based on their own methods of analysis, where the main criterium was market’s maturity.

According to App Annie in 2021 the consumer spend on apps will reach a striking $139 billion in revenue (exclusive of advertising revenue), which is natural considering that now people are spending twice more time within apps than only few years ago.

Over 3 billion new users will be introduced to mobile apps over 5 years, and global downloads are projected to add 20% each year to total 352 billion by 2021.

Mature markets (China, USA, Japan, Korea and the United Kingdom) will continue to grow in gross spends per device. By 2021 they are expected to cover 86,5% of global in-app spends.

Meanwhile, the emerging markets (India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia) are forecasted to hit it big with downloads. App Annie report highlights India’s big potential for becoming the most rapidly evolving market next year (111% growth in 2017 year downloads, 23 billion downloads by 2021) and follow second after China, the king of all domains - both downloads and revenue.

From the geo-perspective, APAC region will no doubt keep global dominance having such a strong leader as China among its members, but will it be same in terms of mobile platforms?

Despite Android is expected to win the ‘consumer spend race’ in 2017 (owing it to the increase in Android app installs across Google Play and third-party stores), Apple is forecasted to bring back the top position. After 2017, iOS users will continue to spend more within apps letting the gross consumer spend go as high as to $60 billion in 2021.

News, media streaming and dating apps are named as one of the emerging non-gaming categories that will best monetise users with in-app subscriptions in the next five years. Still, App Annie reports games will be the most lucrative app category in the global market.

To sum it up in the best way, here are a few tips for everyone who’s into gaming business: -- invest into mature markets for revenue, especially China-- turn to emerging markets for a big consumer base and find other ways to monetise (for example, through ads)-- make multi-platform games as both iOS and Android will be in the lead.

Hopefully, you will use this to the benefit of your games.Check App Annie for best insights and analyses, and stay tuned for our new posts!